Of Things Forgotten (a Twilight prequel)
by pacificnorthwestwoman
Summary: In her life as a vampire, Alice Cullen is the spritely enthusiastic character we all love, but the shadowed details of her past left many questions unanswered. In this imagined prequel to the Twilight series, the secrets of her human life will be uncovered through the last memories of Mary Alice Brandon.
1. Chapter 1

(Please Note: this is my first time trying to write fiction so bear with me, I would love to hear any comments and constructive criticism, feedback is greatly appreciated! I will try to update new chapters frequently! Thank you for reading! UPDATE 7/13: I have gone through and done some much-needed editing, and have posted a brand new chapter! Chapter 4 is currently in the works.)

Chapter 1: Admitted

My mother filed out of the back seat after me, her face wore the somber mask of someone in mourning. My sister Cynthia and father stayed at home, unable or unwilling to face the disgrace of taking the trip from Biloxi to the Mississippi State Insane Asylum in Jackson. When I looked at my mother's small mousy face, tears began to well up in my eyes. They told me this was only temporary, she kept saying that I need some rest, but I knew her real intentions. I had seen them the second that my parents made the decision to admit me. But intentions aside, she seemed genuinely convinced that this place would help me. I looked away from her before she noticed my tears, she was always against dramatic shows of emotion, believing that women should appear content and poised at all times. Despite my disagreement with her ideas on the subject, I contained my crying as I didn't want to upset her in the last moments that I would see her.

"Mother" I half-whispered breaking the silence as we walked up the red clay path to the outer gates of the asylum

"Mary please." She said in a shaky clipped tone

"It wasn't me" my quiet voice was almost a plea, my last attempt to ask her to believe me, I needed _someone_ to believe me. But her answering silence said what I knew all along, and that was the painful fact that no one would believe me. I would forever be credited with the fire that killed an entire family, a fire that killed people I loved.

The visions of red-orange flames blinded me, my body was paralyzed as I tried to struggle away from the inferno. My fight was useless and I stood like a pillar of stone while thick black smoke billowed from all around me. Suddenly I could see someone running from the living room, her body was engulfed and her screams pierced to the very depths of me. It was Magdalene! My beautiful energetic best friend, that was when I realized where I was. In the blink of an eye, my paralyzed legs were standing in the blackened and collapsed remains of a home that held so many fond memories, this place where I spent summer nights dreaming about the future with my childhood friend. This place that was always like a second home, filled with the people who I considered to be my family, burnt to cinders. A place that used to smell like her mom's peach cobbler now thick with the smell of smoke.

With a gasp of air, the vision was complete, and a feeling of dread filled me to the core. The memory of that vision which repeated in my thoughts for 2 months was now nothing more than a painful horrific reminder of what I couldn't change. Seeing glimpses of the future was a curse. When I was very young I learned that it was best never to mention them to anyone, no one would believe me anyway. But when hellish images of my friend's last moments began to interrupt my days, I could not allow myself to pretend that I didn't know… I had to tell someone. So, I did, I tried to tell Magdalene, and she screamed at me. She told me that she wanted nothing to do with me and that I was evil for playing such games. I tried to tell my family, I begged them to listen, but when no one did I tried to prevent it by myself.

I watched Madeline's house from my window each night, a method we used to use in order to plan secret trips to speakeasies and dances. One night I recognized the glow of a fire, I could see it in the kitchen engulfing everything in its path. A petrified sound choked from my chest as I scrambled out of my window and down the lattice siding. By the time I reached her home the screams which were familiar by now since I had heard them countless times in my visions were echoing throughout the house as her family struggled to find a way out. I banged on the windows and doors and yelled for someone to help until my voice gave out and my face was drenched in tears and sweat. There was nothing to break the windows with, and my small hands were useless, sobbing I collapsed into the grass a few yards away from her front door.

"Mary? Mary Alice Brandon?" An unfamiliar kind voice broke through my thoughts and brought me to the present. A tall slender red-haired woman in a white nurse uniform was speaking through the massive wrought-iron gate that enclosed the asylum. "I'm nurse Sarah, I am going to get you checked in, ok?" her tone was similar to the one you would use to pacify a child on the verge of throwing a fit.

"Please call me Alice" I replied, a little annoyed at the patronizing tone

"Ok, dear right this way please"

I glanced at my mom who nodded and placed my bag on the ground before turning and walking unceremoniously towards the car. I swallowed the lump in my throat and walked with the nurse.

I noticed the two imposing men who walked a good distance behind us, both men were brawny and muscular under their full white uniforms, and did not match the smile or enthusiasm emitting from nurse Sarah. Instead, their intimidating appearance seemed to match the massive white building that came into view just beyond the gate.

The entryway was held up by four enormous pillars. The sheer size of the place was hidden behind countless old growth oak trees dripping with gray Spanish moss. Eight slightly smaller pillars held up the elegantly designed porches which stretched out to the left and the right of the entry way. The front of the building could pass as an old mansion home from the days before the civil war, but the stench of chemicals and clinical looking interior which waited just beyond the heavy wooden double doors immediately gave me a sense of foreboding. Nurse Sarah walked to the desk area which was the only item of furniture in the foyer, she sat down and stated in a firm and no longer kind voice

"The orderlies will take you from here"

The large men grabbed me by either arm and dragged me through another set of double doors, and then through a locked set of metal doors, I did not try to resist them as I was sure it would do no good. My build was very slight, and despite the many tasks around the house that my mother had me do daily, I never really put on the muscles that her and my sister got from doing the same tasks.

A long corridor stretched endlessly before me, hundreds of solid doors with tiny horizontal windows near the top lined each wall. A sign declaring this as the women's ward was hung above a small placard on the wall next to a door which said "Dr. Portson". The men pushed me into the door and slammed it behind me.

"Brutes aren't they," a silky voice said from behind me.

I jumped and spun around to see a stalky man with salt and pepper hair and a pretentious looking face walk away from a bookcase near the door towards his large mahogany desk in the center of the room.

"I – I suppose so" I stammered

"Well it can be necessary you see; some people here are real monsters"I didn't respond, his suave overly confident demeanor put me on edge. "Sit down," he commanded

"I'd rather stand thanks."

"Mary, you can either do what I want you to do, or I will make you do it. I'm sure that you would agree that it would be easier for everyone if you would just do as I say" he said this rather ominous statement in an inviting and almost sickeningly kind tone, which sent fearful shivers up my spine.

"Please I would rather you call me Alice, " I said, resigned as I took a seat in the brown leather chair in front of him.

He didn't respond, instead, he began to shuffle through a yellow file folder on his desk. When he finally came to the paper he was looking for, he began to read and a range of emotions flitted across his face until finally settling into an impassive mask.

"So, you see visions of the future?"

I sat silently, understanding that he wanted me to confirm what he had already decided. That I was crazy. As my silence stretched on, his impatience became apparent.

"Listen, Mary, I am trying to help you, don't you want to see your family again?"

"yes," I said simply

"of course, you do, and the only way that I can figure out how to treat you is for you to tell me what I need to know. Do you understand?" he said with a fake smile

"I see visions of the future" I repeated his words back to him, realizing that this was something I never in my life imagined that I would admit out loud.

"now that wasn't hard, was it?" he said as a menacing smile spread across his face. He rang a bell on his desk which summoned the orderlies. "You see, this place is on the cutting edge of psychiatric research, you should consider yourself lucky," he said to me before turning to the orderlies and saying, "DST tomorrow morning"

The orderlies both replied with a curt "yes sir" and dragged me off into one of the many rooms lining the hall. They shoved me into the small windowless room and locked the door as they left. One of their voices commanded me through the door to remove my clothes and push them through the narrow opening near the bottom. I did and they slipped a sheath made of a rough brown fabric back through. I put the meager piece of clothing on and sobbed as I fell asleep on the flat hard cot.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Sleep

I woke to the sound of locks being opened on the other side of the heavy door. I pushed past the haze of a dreamless night and tried to find my way through the disorientation of waking up somewhere unfamiliar. My heart sank as a new pair of orderlies came into the room and my subconscious instantly registered where I was.

"Mary Brandon?" one of the orderlies asked

"I prefer Alice" I replied, rising stiffly from the metal cot

"It's time for your treatment, come with us"

I stood up half expecting them to grab me by the arms, the same way that the pair from yesterday did. But when they didn't, I followed quietly behind them through the door and into the endless hallway.

We walked for what seemed like forever before reaching a door identical to every other door along the way, _how does anyone find their way around here?_ I wondered idly to myself. The inside of the room was notably larger than the one where I slept, but it was still windowless. Instead of the metal cot in the corner, there was a metal table with brown leather straps on the top, bottom, and middle. Next to the bed was a tray with a collection of tools and needles. The sight of the room combined with the strong stench of cleaning chemicals made my head swim and my knees buckle. The two orderlies noticed the falter in my steps and assumed I was trying to make a run for it, so they grabbed me just as I began to fall.

"Strap her to the bed, " Dr. Portson said as he walked in behind us. The two brutes lifted me onto the bed and strapped me in with no trouble, my mind wanted to fight back but my body, responding to the fear wouldn't let me react.

"Deep Sleep Therapy." the doctor began. "It is the latest treatment available, and is said to work wonders on patients like you, patients who hear voices, see visions, or female patients suffering from the psychotic effects of a wandering womb, you are the perfect candidate." He seemed so proud of himself as he talked, it was almost as if he was talking just to hear himself. "Were going to inject you with a drug called Somnifen, it is a little barbiturate cocktail made specially to help you fall asleep"

"I have already slept, I don't need- "I began to say

"Now, now Mary I don't believe I asked you what you need. I am the doctor here. I have been well trained in the noble field of the mind, _you_ do not have any ideas of what you need, that is my job. Now sit quietly at let me continue."

His words made me taste bile, although I was full of fear about what was going to happen, the small fiery voice that burned in my subconscious was livid at the condescending tone that he constantly used when speaking to me. He continued to drone on about how lucky I am that he is my doctor, as I lay confined to the metal table. I was the very definition of a captive audience and he seemed to revel in having that power.

He crossed the room and stood next to the table, I strained against the straps trying to see what he was doing, the glint of the needle's sharp point as it came into view sent me into a panic. I couldn't breathe, fear and helplessness sent shutters through me as the doctors smiling face got closer to mine. He shoved the needled into my neck and the last thing I registered was his foul breath as he sneered the words "sleep well Mary".

Other than in books, I had never seen snow, but the breathtaking serenity of my surroundings covered in the pure white blanket of it seemed familiar somehow. Crystal clear daggers of ice hung from trees that had long since lost their leaves, while snow-covered evergreens flaunted their impressive lush mains, and stretched so high they appeared to be growing up through the clouds. I had never been out of the state of Mississippi, yet somehow this frozen world felt like home. A gust of wind came in from the west and caused my rough brown sheath to brush along my thighs, I looked down at my bare feet and realized that I wasn't cold. The snow which came up to my ankles, and encapsulated my toes, felt no different than when I buried my feet in the red clay dirt back at home. _Strange._ I thought to myself. I looked up at the sky and could see the sun trying to fight its way past a thin layer of clouds. I began to walk forward and was suddenly aware that I was holding onto something. I glanced down and realized that my hand was nestled in someone else's. The hand that I held was the same temperature as the snow, and as my own hand, and was somehow incandescent. I lifted my gaze slowly to see who it was that was gently holding on to me, but before I could see his face I was abruptly woken by the snub voice of Dr. Portson.

"When she is fully awake take her to my office"

"Yes sir" a soft female voice replied

I heard the door to the room slam shut as the doctor left, and light footsteps as they walked towards me. I turned my head and watched as a petite brunette nurse began to unlatch the leather restraints.

"How are you feeling?" her voice sounded genuine

"I feel fine, thank you" she smiled and helped me off the table, my legs felt weak and it took a moment for me to balance myself.

"Sorry" I murmured as she steadied me

"It's ok, it is normal to feel weak and disoriented after a DST. Usually, patients sleep longer then you did, so you are doing pretty good"

"Oh," I said a little surprised "I feel well rested, did I only sleep for a few hours?"

"No honey, you have been asleep for 9 days"

"9 days?" I repeated in horror. I looked down at my body and was noticeably thinner.

"How is that possible"

The nurse held my elbow and began to usher me out of the door as she spoke.

"Deep sleep therapy is supposed to help you fall into a deep dreamless sleep, they believe it will help your brain fix what is ailing it. Typically, patients who receive the dose that you did, will sleep for 2 weeks, but for some reason, you woke up much sooner, which is pretty interesting-"

I interrupted her before she began to elaborate on how fascinating the procedure was. I wasn't sure I could listen to her continue talking about how interesting she finds a treatment that takes away massive chunks of someone's life.

"It wasn't dreamless," I said flatly

She immediately stopped what she was saying, and froze.

"what do you mean, it wasn't dreamless?" she said in a hushed and slightly panicked tone

"I had a dream while I slept, I was standing in the sno- "

"No! don't tell me, don't tell anyone, especially not the doctor!" she pleaded in a whisper

"But why?" is whispered back

"Ladies!" Dr. Portson's voice echoed from a few yards down the corridor, my heart rate sped frantically at the sound "gossip is unbecoming and rude. Nurse I asked you to send Mary to my room immediately not waste time whispering in the halls!"

"Yes, sir, I'm sorry doctor" I didn't miss the faint pleading look that crossed her face as she retreated back down the hall. The doctors fierce gaze fixed on me.

"What were you two discussing so intently?"

"Nothing, she was just explaining the sleep therapy a little more," I said in as even of a voice as I could muster

He mumbled something that I couldn't make out and led me to his office.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Stranger

It had been 7 months since I was admitted into this place and it trickled by in an assortment of sadistic tortures. Dr. Portson would always describe them as "the latest treatments" and tell me that it was the only way for me to see my family again. He made nurses immerse me in bathtubs full of frigid water to shock me into my senses. He made the orderlies stop bringing me food except for once every few days to allow my brain to cleanse itself of unhealthy toxins, he injected me with a sickness called malaria to induce a coma. A treatment that he said would cause me to wake up cured, but it didn't cause a coma, it almost killed me.

All of these treatments were an attempt to cure my crazy but nothing changed. If anything, I felt as if my mind might actually be slipping away from me. The deep sleep therapy was the hardest on me though. It was bad because no matter how much I begged for it to stop, the doctor kept forcing that needle into my neck. It was worse because I never knew how much time would slip away while I was unconscious, but it was miserable because when I finally did wake up, I couldn't fall asleep without the injections, so I sat wide awake for days on end.

The sleeping quarters in which they confined me when I was not being subjected Dr. Portson's imagination, was closer to a prison cell than a real room. All four brick walls were painted a stark white, the 4 lights hanging from the ceiling caused the room to be almost painfully bright during the day, but the lack of a window made for a night that was so dark that you could almost feel the blackness collapse in on you. Aside from my first night here, I did not have any interest in sleeping on the cold metal bed, there was nothing in the way of blankets or pillows, I was pretty sure it was to prevent me from killing myself, I suppose that was a privilege reserved for the doctor himself. The metal bed and a waterless commode in the corner were the only things in the room.

I would usually get a few days between treatments. During this time, they would lock me in my little prison cell and I would try my best to not go insane. But since my body wanted to make up for the days spent asleep while undergoing treatments, I would be awake for… 24…48…72 hours or more. During the first few weeks, I tried my best to occupy my mind with things that might help me hang on to my sanity. I would recite poems that I could recall from memory. I would sometimes sing songs that Magdalene and I memorized from the nights we would go out and dance to jazz at little illegal bars hidden behind walls in otherwise upstanding businesses. The sultry voice of the jazz singers always spoke to me, and the excitement of getting dolled up with my best friend for a carefree night of fun was always a welcome distraction from our otherwise mundane lives. And the memory of that helped me to cope for a little while. My voice didn't do the songs any justice, but singing them out loud helped me remind myself that I did, in fact, have a life before this place, that I might have something to go back to.

After that first weeks, the poems and songs did nothing to keep me grounded. The too-bright walls seemed to be inching their way towards me each day, making it hard for me to fill my lungs with air. The sound of my own voice made me edgy so I stopped speaking. Silence surrounded me like a blanket in the heat of summer. But occasionally the room would be filled with the heart-wrenching sobs or ear-splitting screams that came from the other women in this ward.

The bricks on the wall were my books, instead of words, my mind made stories of the cracks and pits that formed in each one. The patterns in the wood grain on the floor were my vacation, small intricate landscapes, swerving and dipping unexpectedly. The lights on the ceiling were my friends, the faint buzzing they would make in silent moments were words of encouragement, full of meaning and hopes for the future. But they were fickle friends, and they left me each night alone in my mind and plunged into darkness. I would lay on the floor in front of the sliver at the bottom of the door, the way that the light from the corridors seemed determined to fight its way through such a small space was somehow inspiring to me. And I didn't spend time wondering if these thoughts meant that I might be losing my mind because the majority of my thoughts were obsessing over the events that placed me here.

I would sit and think about my family a lot, I would remind myself that if I just do what the doctor says that one day I will be able to go home to them. I would also think about Magdalene, I often wondered if the detectives would ever find out who started the fire. At first, they thought it was an accident since it started with a candle in the living room before spreading throughout the rest of the house, but after finding that every window was locked and the doors had been barricaded they began to suspect foul play. That is why I was blamed.

The fact that I told people about the fire long before it happened was suspicious but having been discovered unconscious at the edge of their yard, it was hard for the authorities to consider anyone else. I truly hoped that my purgatory in this place would give the detectives time to find the real monster who did it, and maybe it would give my family time to forgive me for a crime I did not commit.

There was a sick part of me that would eagerly await the DST treatments because every time the Somnifen would pull me under I would be rewarded with visions more beautiful than any I had ever seen. Aside from how captivating these visions were, they were also different because I could move. Every vision I had ever had prior to this, I was always standing or sitting paralyzed, unable to interact with or feel anything. The vision of me standing in the snow with the man came frequently. But there were also visions of me zipping in between moss covered trees, so fast it was almost as if I was flying. And others where all I was doing was walking but everything I observed was breathtakingly gorgeous. My eyes could detect things in vivid detail. When I stood at the base of a waterfall I could see each tiny droplet of mist as it reflected the colors of the sun. Millions of droplets doing their part to form a rainbow. Every one of these visions were so hopeful that it made my heart sing, but just as I would come to the point where I would get to see the face of the man who was with me in each vision, the medicine would wear off and I would find myself awake in a clinical room staring into the face of the devil in the form of Dr. Portson. Those visions were everything I had, _they_ were my new home, my only respite in this hell that I now lived, and I counted on them, even though I knew they would never be anything more than drug induced dreams.

I was recovering from the effects of another ice bath when I found myself sucked into another vision. At first, I was disoriented as I hadn't had a normal one since I was admitted into the asylum, yet there I was, standing frozen in place surrounded by oak trees. The Spanish moss that hung from them like gray veils was dancing around me with the breeze. I could see someone emerging from the shadows into the light cast from the moon. He was thin and fairly tall, almost 6 feet. He had light brown hair and appeared to be smiling, or sneering at me as he walked at an unusually fast pace in my direction. For some reason, I was terrified. I felt the need to run as he came closer to me. _Why was I so afraid of this man I had never seen before?_ I wondered. He was less than a foot away from me when he said

"It's been a fun game, but it's time now to for the victor to take his prize."

Suddenly a pain like fire spread from a point in my neck and burned throughout me. The face of the man twisted in hatred and anger as an angelic voice from behind me said fiercely,

"She will never be yours."

I had never had a vision where I didn't know the people in it, who was that man that I was so frightened of? To my knowledge, I had never seen him before. And who was the man that stood behind me, with the voice that sounded like the song of angels? _I really must be losing my mind now_ I thought to myself as I ran my finger along the seam between two of the wooden floor panels.

The strange vision must have taken a lot out of me because when I woke up I never even realized that I had fallen asleep in the first place. It was the feeling that I wasn't alone that woke me, but when I glanced around the room I _was_ alone. I considered this to be another hint towards my impending insanity.

I wasn't sure how long it had been since they brought me in here but the cold tray of food on the floor and the fact that they had turned my lights off made me think that it must be sometime in the middle of the night. I was too edgy to try and force myself back to sleep, so I watched the shadows of passing nurses and orderlies and listened to the hushed conversations until the light buzzed back on, signaling the start of another day.

"Still not sleeping I see?" the orderly said as he opened the door and stepped over my uneaten food.

"I'm not sure what you're talking about," I said, my tone full of petulance I feel like could sleep for days." I decided weeks ago that I had no obligation to be kind to these people. Day after day they blindly followed the orders of the doctor even though he was clearly causing more problems than he was solving. After so much time on the receiving end of his sadistic so-called treatments, it was clear to me that he was nothing more than a bad doctor with a god complex. I viewed any person who continued to work for him undeserving of any amount of kindness that I still had left in me. And while it seemed petty, it was the only amount of control I still had left in my life, the only decision I could make for myself.


End file.
